Friday, 28 March 2014

My first passenger.

It is kind of fitting that my brother was my first passenger. When
he learnt to drive I was the first passenger in his souped up Talbot Sunbeam*.
That car was fun, I recall it being quite “sporty”, we’ll come back to that
phrase in a moment.

My brother was quite fascinated with the amount of preparation that
went in before the flight, even then he didn’t see all of it because I got up
about 3 hours before we needed to leave in order to do the last minute course
stuff, plugging in the current winds and so on.

A few days before I sat at our table plugging numbers into the
weight and balance sheet. Technically I have a spreadsheet I can use for this,
but like anything at the moment, I’m getting as much practice as I can doing
everything by hand. I showed him the various weights and the fact that they act
at different parts of the plane, so you need to check if the centre of gravity
is within limits.

I’d never carried passengers or stuff in the back before so I
needed to carefully figure out just how much fuel we could take. I’d already
realised that we were going to need one of the S models, with their extra 100
pound or so capacity.

Numbers crunched, I worked out that at ¾ tanks we would be good
from a weight limit and a take off COG limit too.

“So, all good then?” My brother enquired.

“Not exactly, I’ve calculated that we are fine to take off, Now I’ve
got to figure some fuel burn and see if we are ok to land!”

We both agreed that landing at some point would be nice!

On the day, we trundled down to the airport, picnic bag in hand. My
brother clutching the spare headset I the manner of someone who really doesn’t
know what he’s meant to do with it.

I’d already had a brief chat with him about how he could talk to
me, and no ATC wouldn’t be able to hear him, but when someone was talking on
the radio, I needed him to be quiet. I also explained that there would probably
be times where I wouldn’t be able to talk to him, like on takeoff and landing.

There are a few things that I would have liked to have done
differently from a passenger perspective. I would have liked to explain the
walkround a little more but the plane was outside, it was minus twenty odd, so
the walkround became a little brisk, pace wise. I think my brother was still
getting over the fact that we just pushed open a door and wandered onto the
apron.

I honestly don’t know what he thought of the amount of checks and
stuff we have to do on the ground before we takeoff, and I don’t think I really
spent a lot of time beforehand explaining it all to him. It’s a lot for a non
pilot to take in to be honest but before we knew it, I was lined up on my
favourite runway, had the crosswind corrections in and we were airborne.

About Me

I once was terrified...... now I don't know what I am.
I started this blog as The World's Most Anxious Person aka WMAP.
I was scared of flying but now, somehow, I managed to get a Private Pilot Licence.
These are my thoughts......